Pocono Mountain grad feeds mourners in Conn. shooting

The mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School literally hit close to home for a 1992 Pocono Mountain High School graduate, who is coping with his grief by coordinating an all-volunteer effort to feed Newtown funeral mourners.

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By DAVID PIERCE

poconorecord.com

By DAVID PIERCE

Posted Dec. 20, 2012 at 12:01 AM

By DAVID PIERCE

Posted Dec. 20, 2012 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

The mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School literally hit close to home for a 1992 Pocono Mountain High School graduate, who is coping with his grief by coordinating an all-volunteer effort to feed Newtown funeral mourners.

"God gave me the talent to be a good chef so that's what I'm doing, paying it forward, so to speak," Tom Isidori, 38, of nearby Fairfield, Conn., said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Isidori, a Culinary Institute of New York graduate, is executive chef at Country Club of Fairfield and an international foods instructor at Norwalk Community College.

Isidori, who lives 12 miles from Newtown, said having 5- and 6-year-old children made him particularly sad about the losses of other parents, and he wanted to help.

He contacted LeReine Frampton, a former student and food intern of his who lives in Newtown.

"'Between the two of us,' I said, 'What can we do?'" Isidori said.

They drafted a letter offering to feed mourners at post-funeral receptions and delivered it to an interdenominational meeting of clergy Sunday night at a local church. They also left a copy at a Newtown funeral home.

They didn't approach families directly.

"We tried to stay away from contacting them," Isidori said. "The last thing you want to do is bother people while they're grieving."

An hour after the letter was delivered, two churches asked them to prepare meals for two services of 2,000 mourners each.

Isidori posted a call for volunteer cooks on Facebook and got 900 responses.

"A lot of my friends from high school, Pocono Mountain — the outpouring was amazing," he said.

A crew of 20 local chefs and food students was selected.

Next, Isidori contacted corporations and local food suppliers for donations of meat, pasta and cooking and serving equipment. They secured use of a room at the town hall in the center of Newtown to prepare the meals.

Food for the first service was wheeled across the street, from the town hall to the church where the funeral took place. The crew worked Wednesday to feed funeral-goers at three evening services. Food will be served at two more receptions today and one on Saturday.

The strain of coping with 26 murders and hundreds of journalists who came to cover the story is taking its toll on residents, he said.

"The town is getting frustrated," Isidori said. "People are trying to heal and people keep looking for information.

"I think this is hitting harder than Aurora or Columbine," Isidori said of other recent mass killings. "They're not even children. They're babies. There's an innocence that was lost. I think this is something people will be talking about a 100 years from now."

The outpouring of support from about 50 fellow Pocono Mountain graduates has buoyed Isidori's spirit.

"They all have reached out to me and they're all over the place," Isidori said. "It makes my heart smile."